Reservations persist on Joske's project

Although plans for a hotel tower on the Joske's building appear to have some momentum at City Hall, putting the project ahead of crafting a more suitable environment around the Alamo remains troubling.

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San Antonio's Historic and Design Review Commission is advisory. And the city can accept or reject its advice, or, as City Manager Sheryl Sculley has now done with the Joske's building, conditionally approve a project but tell the developer to come back with a better plan.

But we fail to see the need for any of that. A proposed 26-floor hotel tower atop the Joske's building in the Alamo Plaza Historic District is still a matter of cart before the horse.

First, there should be a plan to restore the Alamo to as much of its historic footprint as possible. And the need persists, though state legislation to help accomplish this appears dead in this legislative session. No, the hotel is not in that footprint, but Alamo restoration cannot be separated from what happens in the historic district.

It appears, from an accounting of commission votes on May 4 by Express-News staff writer Benjamin Olivo, that getting the project directly to the city manager's desk suited the developer just fine.

And Sculley has now given the project conditional approval. So, here's a natural question: Why have an expert advisory commission at all?

There were two 4-4 votes on the project that day, with some sentiment for the developer coming back with changes. But when the city's historic preservation officer informed the commission that a tie vote would send the project directly to the city manager for approval, there was a change of heart, 6-2, recommending denial. This apparently was helped along when the developer's representative said — twice — that his team was just fine with no commission decision.

The commission obviously didn't want to be bypassed.

To her credit, Sculley didn't approve the proposal as submitted. There are conditions. And we suppose that we can look at those 4-4 votes as indicative of indecision. But faced with the prospect of what the commission likely believed was approval of the project, members correctly stepped back.

Mayor Julián Castro has also given his blessing, and Councilman Diego Bernal, in whose district the 26-tower hotel/time share will sit, indicated he's fine with proceeding.

Our reservations about the project remain. It is as if everyone — including, now, the Legislature — has written off the Alamo as that nice place to visit but which, too often, elicits a reaction of, “Is that all there is?” Asked, of course, as folks peer across the street to a number of venues that don't exactly shout out Texas history.

A many-storied hotel tower won't shout out that history, either. And this is a downtown, in any case, with no shortage of hotels near and around the Alamo, particularly with one now in the cards for HemisFair Park. If hotels were the key to a renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci would be beaming proudly in his grave about downtown. And it is doubtful that Convention Center expansion will result in such an uptick in hotel business to consistently fill the rooms already available downtown.

We'll await the developer's new plans. Perhaps they will be an improvement. But even scaled back, as Sculley suggests, our reservations remain. The rest of the City Council should have the same qualms.